1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the art of providing environmental information. More particularly, the present invention relates to the field of mobile information systems that can electronically provide environmental information to a user.
2. History of the Prior Art
Location based content is quickly becoming a reality as many people are using mobile electronic devices as a means of gathering information while moving through places in the world, often places with which they may be unfamiliar. Like other forms of data or media content, users of location based systems will also find that in certain situations they will also enjoy to have richer more immersive experiences of the place or the content. Location based media will become much more exciting and interesting as new techniques are developed for making the media richer, interactive and immersive.
There is a need in the art for an improved system for creating augmented reality environments or environments enriched with location-based content. There is a further need in the art for a system for navigating such environments through the combination of the user's location, the direction that the user is looking and any other user input by which a correlation may be made between the view the user is seeing and data associated with that view. Such a system would most preferably communicate both visual and aural data to the user, although in some embodiments it is not necessary to communicate both forms of data, and either aural or visual data may be sufficient depending upon the implementation.